


Cryptanalysis: The Past is a Grotesque Animal

by enthusiasticinformedfragging



Series: Slavecoding [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: AU: Whirl is not Jetstream, Accidental Stimulation, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, Body Horror, Disabled Robot, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Invasion of Privacy, M/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Objectification, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Slavery, Past Torture, Plug and Play Sexual Interfacing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Robogore, Spark Sex, Suicide Attempt, Tactile Sexual Interfacing, Whump, slavecoding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-25 02:05:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3792517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusiasticinformedfragging/pseuds/enthusiasticinformedfragging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>" “Hey, doc, you okay?”</p><p>'Answer when asked a direct question,' the Functionists had said. 'Tell me you're okay,' Whirl had ordered. It'd been millions of years, but this sensation—this pull, this need to obey, to serve—wasn't one he could forget. </p><p>“I'm fine,” he lied. An involuntary flush of pride at obeying drove back the horror—but only for a moment."</p><p>Rung's helm gets reassembled after the hostage situation, but everything is not as it should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the second in a series, written by a friend who wished me to post these in their stead, about Rung coping with having slavecoding. It is basically beautiful indulgent Rung whump and I'm so glad author anon let me talk them into allowing me to post it. Will eventually have Whirl/Rung.
> 
> Note that you do NOT have to read the prequel to follow this fic, it stands on its own.

Rung's helm felt oddly numb. He tried to access his most recent memories, but all he could recall were rows and rows of engex bottles and the sound of familiar voices. Had he gotten drunk? He didn't feel overcharged—in fact, he didn't feel much of anything aside from a strange twinge in his thumb. And why would his thumb—

The memories rushed back over him. Fortress Maximus holding him hostage, ripping out his thumb—Whirl talking nonstop, keeping the gun on him and calling Rung a _friend_ , of all things—the improbable projection of scenes from Garrus-9 appearing in his office—and then nothing.

“Doc, you okay?” Whirl's voice came from somewhere by his side. “Please tell me you're okay. You've been out for days.”

“I'm fine,” Rung answered automatically. But that wasn't true—he felt out of sorts. He onlined his optics and looked up at Whirl in confusion. “At least, I don't seem to be in pain?”

“That's good, doc. That's real good news. I'll ping Ratchet—just sit tight, okay?”

The urge to say, _Oh, please don't trouble yourself—I can call him_ , surfaced to the forefront of his mind, but then the order settled in and he immediately still. _Yes, I can sit tight. I'll be good._

A wave of terror crashed through Rung. It'd been millions of years, but this sensation—this pull, this _need_ to obey, to serve—wasn't one he could forget. Every piston and cable in his body strained to obey the command to _stay_. His frame ached, but it righted itself to a sitting position without any direction on his part. No matter how much it hurt, Master's word was law.

The slave coding. Dread knotted around his spark.

“Hey, doc, you okay?”

 _Tell him you're okay,_ the coding ordered, remembering the first order it had received. “I'm fine,” he lied. An involuntary flush of pride at obeying drove back the horror—but only for a moment.

_'Tell me what's wrong, Rung.'_

He found himself back in the cold cell the Functionists had used for his surgeries. All the tests to determine his alt-mode's purpose. All the experiments to develop some use for him.

_'I have no function, Master.'_

The mech had forced Rung to look at him, had run a servo against his chin and forced him to look _up_ until his neck ached.

 _'You_ had _no function,'_ he had said. The desire and pride in his field had inflamed Rung's own, stirring unwanted charge and joy while his tanks continued to roil. _'I have given you a function—you will serve your planet. You will serve your Senate.'_

He had wanted to shout. He could still feel the fury in his throat, the need to tell him that he was not a service droid—but Master had already told him not to speak unless spoken to. Had just told him his purpose, which overwrote anything his own spark felt.

_'Yes, Master.'_

“Rung?”

Rung looked down at his servos, which weren't trembling. Of course—he'd been ordered to remain still. “Yes?” Rung asked, swallowing the _master_ that attempted to chase the yes out of his voxcoder.

“You—you don't look so good, doc. You sure you're okay?”

 _Answer when asked a direct question,_ the Functionists had said. _Tell me you're okay,_ Whirl had ordered.

“I'm fine.”

***

Rung sat very still in his office chair. Released by Ratchet and supposedly in peak physical condition, he'd been forced from the medbay.

His slave coding had twisted and knotted around his joints, trying to prevent him from moving when Master had said to be _still_ and to _wait_ but then Whirl had offered to escort him back to his office, and he had been free.

Free to sit at his desk when his spark itched to pace. Free to sit at his desk and wait when he needed to go over case files. Free to think about the worry in Whirl's field as he'd left.

 _You've failed him_. His plating itched—his fuel lines itched. He pulled at the still-sore thumb that had only recently been reattached to drive back the anxiety. _He had to walk you back to your office. You can't do anything for yourself and you won't do anything for him. You're so_ bad _that he won't have you. You're_ useless, _worthless._

He pushed back against the coding, trying the techniques he'd been teaching for millions of years, but nothing caused the ache to subside. Worthlessness and horrible guilt ate at his spark, worse than any physical pain.

A quick yank on his injured thumb—a punishment—eased the agony somewhat, but only so long as thepain lasted. The coding craved directions, orders. The Functionists had shaped him so that he _wanted_ to obey.

His arm fought him as he pulled out a datapad and began typing a missive to send to Whirl. So sorry, but sessions would have to be canceled for the foreseeable future! What a shame.

Each excuse fought against the delete button—his hands refused to tell his Master _no_. He no longer had the luxury of a _no_ , and wasn't that the most terrifying thought?

After three joors, he managed to hit send on a one-sentence message to Whirl. As soon as it had sent, he ripped the plating off his palm and watched the energon pool in the damaged circuitry.

_Bad. Disobedient. Impertinent._

“I am not a service droid,” Rung tried to say.

It came out as static. In his spark, he knew it was a lie.

***

Whirl paced back and forth outside of Rung's office. Everyone else had gotten to start their appointments again—Pit, even _Max_ had started meeting with Rung again—but he'd gotten nothing but cancellations. Rung avoided him in the halls with the kind of spark-deep terror in his field and optics should've been reserved for—for somebody else. Anybody else.

He'd tried to get Max to focus on him. He'd tried to keep the gun off of Rung! But he hadn't done enough, and Rung had nearly died, and he'd seemed pretty ticked even before that about the whole withholding-the-truth thing.

“Hey, Rung, how's it going?” he rehearsed, staring down at his claws. “Yeah, real nice. He probably thinks I was makin' Max angrier to get him to do something nasty.” And, sure, maybe he _had_ made Max angrier, but that had been a tactic!

A terrible tactic.

“He doesn't want to see me,” Whirl said aloud, twisting to look at the door. “So what? Maybe I don't want to see him.”

Except he'd finally admitted that he thought of Rung as a friend, and he'd been willing to get offlined to buy him a little more time for reinforcements to show, and he couldn't pretend that he'd just been messing around. Sure, maybe he could get everybody else to buy it, but Rung—did _Rung_ believe he'd just been zany ol' Whirl who didn't think anything through? He'd thought—he'd _hoped_ —that Rung, at least, knew better.

But he'd had three appointments canceled, and it looked like he was really going to lose the only mech who actually listened when he talked, even if it was just because of some ridiculous duty of care.

Whirl rang the buzzer before he could lose his nerve, and the door unlocked.

His relief at being allowed in was short-lived; the terror and panic in Rung's field hit him from all the way across the room. “Rung? You okay?”

“I'm fine,” he answered, but the words came too quickly, too mechanically. Rung's voice was supposed to be warm and soft and welcoming. This sounded like an automated message from a drone. Rung hadn't looked so frightened and sick even with a gun to his helm.

“You—” He reset his vocalizer. “Do you want me to go?”

Rung opened his mouth, but only clicks and static came out of his vocalizer. It was all the answer Whirl needed.

“Sorry,” he said, twisting away. “I'll, uh. I'll go now.”

***

He'd upset his Master, and his slave coding was _not happy_.

He could not shut the door on his Master. He had failed to answer a direct question. His coding had hungered for orders even when he had managed to avoid seeing Whirl, but it hit him with full force upon teeking Master's disapproval.

It felt as if his fuel tank had ruptured. It felt as if his entire frame would lock down on him. The enormity of his failure crawled beneath his plating.

He'd upset his Master. His only function, and he'd failed. _They were so kind to give you a function, and you refuse it._ His vocalizer continued trying to form a response to a question his Master had not waited to hear answered. _Too slow, too selfish—a disappointment._

His frame burned as if dunked in acid. The coding had direct access to his sensory receptors, his brain module, everything; if he would not punish himself the way it desired, it would short-circuit him.

 _Tell Master the truth,_ it demanded. _Beg for forgiveness._

But Whirl—of all the bots on the ship, Whirl had the most resentment for his position of authority. Whirl threw himself into violence in a way the Senators never had, and they—

He recoiled from the tide of memories. His slave coding had learned from what they wanted, and they wanted him humiliated and in agony. His existence ruined their philosophy, and they had wanted him laid bare for their amusement.

They'd been controlled in their violence, almost deliberate. None of them had taken joy and pride in murder the way that Whirl did—none had willfully ripped mechs apart with bare claws. And even so, they had ordered Rung to tear off his own armor, to pull himself apart at the seams, to unmake himself for their pleasure—

What would Whirl ask of him if he knew? No—no, he would not tell him. _Tell him_. He couldn't. _You are insubordinate!_

The static in his vocalizer gave way to a pained cry, and he stared down at the torn plating by his spark casing. His circuits were burning him alive—if he didn't repent, he would shut down, perhaps permanently—

“Rung?” Whirl demanded, appearing in the doorway again. “What the Pit are you doing?”

“Punishing myself,” Rung answered automatically, his resistance and defiance worn ragged.

“ _What?_ ” Whirl yanked Rung's hand away from his chestplate, and Rung went limp and compliant in his grip. “Why—why would you _do_ that?”

“I upset you,” Rung said. The coding purred its approval, relaxing his cables and releasing him from the agony.

“Who cares if you upset me?” Whirl demanded, his optic fixed on the gouges above Rung's spark chamber. “Why would that matter _at all_?”

Obedience took the words from his mouth before he could swallow them down again. “Because I haveslave coding.” His body felt far away and much too soft, almost organic. “After the shot—it imprinted on you.”

Whirl dropped Rung's hand as if scalded, scrambling backwards.

The coding hissed its disapproval. _What have you done wrong this time? He won't even touch you!_

Rung flinched as the searing pain coursed through his circuits once again, his hand clawing against his spark chamber to ease the agony of the disapproval—of his failure—

“Stop that!”

His hands fell to his lap at once, and the burning eased even as energon trailed down his torso. “Yes, Master.”

The horror in Whirl's field stung worse than an actual slap. “Primus-fragging—I don't want a slave!”

Whirl had ordered him to stop—denied permission even to punish himself, the coding ripped through him with the rejection, trying to gutter his spark to remove the unwanted from Master's presence. He needed to stop the short-circuit—he needed to injure himself to drive back the fire—but Whirl had told him _no_.

He would burn to death here in his chair. His optics fritzed with static and heat cracked the lenses of his glasses. “Please,” Rung managed—and then the circuits in his voxcoder lit up, overwriting his undeserving pleas with static.

“Frag, frag, frag.” Whirl was at his side in an instant. “What's happening? What the frag did I do?”

“I am unwanted,” Rung answered.

“No!” Whirl pressed a claw to his plating as it began to blister with heat—a cool and steadying anchor in a sea of fire. “No, no, you're wanted! Totally wanted! Pit, can the coding just—just offline you if I—if I say the wrong thing?”

Master could never say the wrong thing, the code insisted, but Rung answered, “Yes.” His punishment was the loss of sensory data from his optics, which crackled with agony.

“Frag!” Whirl slammed a claw against the desk, cracking the top. “Ratchet! Ratchet, help! Rung's got slave coding and it's imprinted on me and he's _melting what do I do please help_.”

“If you would like me to remain online, you need only ask.” With the heated state of his processor, Rung didn't realize the question was directed over a commline until he'd already answered. “I apologize for speaking out of turn, Master.”

“Stay online!” Whirl said immediately, grabbing Rung by the shoulders. “Cool down!”

The coding obeyed at once, and Rung collapsed forward into Whirl's arms. The residual bubbling and prickling of his half-melted circuitry made his audials buzz with static, but the pain grew distant. “Thank you, Master.”

“Primus,” Whirl said, then his vocalizer offlined with an audible click. From a mech who self-narrated most of his thoughts, the silence felt unnatural. “Ratchet, please help. He's not melting anymore, but—but he's not okay.”

The coding bristled at the displeasure in Whirl's voice, trying to push Rung back to stop _imposing_ and start _helping_ , but Whirl's grip tightened.

“Shh, shh.” Whirl's claws shook. “You stay right here with me until Ratchet gets here, okay?”

Rung's frame dropped all resistance, crumpling against Whirl. “Yes, Master.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rung falls into old habits, Whirl keeps saying the wrong thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news everyone! The Author Anon decided to make their own AO3 account, enthusiasticinformedfragging, and they are now listed as co-author.

Whirl made a tiny, pinched sound of distress he would never have admitted to. Rung lay limp and unresponsive in his arms—no different from when he'd be dying on the floor of this same office not too long before.

Only this time? This time Whirl had been the one with the gun to his head—and he'd fired it. He stroked the warped surface of Rung's plating, bubbled and pitted and cracked from his own frame baking him alive.

He wasn't supposed to have this kind of responsibility! He didn't _want_ responsibility. Why the Pit did they think he punched himself in the face and called himself unvincible? It made fragging sure that nobody expected him to do more than throw a few punches or maybe accidentally blow himself up.

Yeah, the blowing himself up thing. Cyclonus sure had a sense of timing. Couldn't a bot offline himself in peace?

If he'd succeeded, Rung wouldn't be in this mess.

“Ratchet's on his way,” he said, trying to reassure himself as much as he was trying to soothe Rung. “He's bringing Chromedome. We'll—” He reset his vocalizer to stop himself from potentially prompting another glitching episode. If he said he wanted to fix the slave coding, would it try to get Rung again? Frag, he didn't know anything about this kind of scrap.

Rung remained unresponsive, and Whirl suddenly remembered shushing him earlier. “You can talk if you want to,” he said. “But don't talk if you don't want to!”

“Not what I expected,” Rung said, and his voice was weak and staticky but _his_ and not the awful nothingness that had taken his place, so relief surged through Whirl's spark.

“What did you expect?” Whirl asked.

“Well,” Rung's voice broke into static—he'd clearly damaged something important. “I guess I thought you'd have orders for me.”

Whirl's tanks churned, but he didn't say anything—didn't want to risk setting Rung off again. Even so, Rung flinched back.

His EM field. Scrap. Whirl tried to make it as comforting as possible, tried to soothe the clearly distressed bot, but he'd never been any good at projecting _good_ feelings at mechs. Good feelings got you hurt.

Ratchet came racing down the hall with his sirens on, and Whirl didn't have to feign the relief that hit him.

“About time!” he shouted over his shoulder. Ratchet transformed back to root mode and raced in through the open door, Chromedome hot on his heels.

“Put him down, Whirl,” Ratchet said, his voice tense. Whirl knew that look—Ratchet was a dangerous mech when he started evaluating threats to his patients.

“Last time I did that, he tried to claw out his own spark!” Whirl snapped. Instead, he carefully got to his pedes and brought him over to the doctor. “And then I told him to stop, and he started—”

“Rung, what happened?” Ratchet asked.

Rung remained limp in Whirl's arms, his optics trained on the mech holding him.

“Please tell him what happened.” The words felt like rust on his vocalizer—the order could be sweetened by all the _pleases_ he wanted, and it wouldn't change the fact that Rung _had_ to listen to him.

“When I came to after the cranial reconstruction, my slave coding—which had been dormant since the Senate's fall—imprinted on Whirl. I attempted to distance myself, but the coding punished me.”

“Punished you?” Ratchet prompted.

“I am compelled to actively serve my designated master. If I perform insufficiently or displease them, the coding has access to my sensory receptors, my brain module, my circuitry, my t-cog, and most everything else. It even has access to my spark chamber.” He coughed static again, curling against Whirl. “When Whirl found out, he said he did not want a slave. Therefore, the coding tried to remove the slave—myself—from his presence while maintaining his other orders: stay put, do not harm yourself.”

“Stay put?” Whirl repeated. “But I didn't—oh, frag, I said something like that in the medbay, didn't I?” He felt sick. “I told you to sit tight while I commed Ratchet. _Frag_ , doc, I swear I had no idea—” He reset his vocalizer twice before he could accidentally prompt a return of the melting. A creeping dread stole up on his spark. “So when you say it tried to remove you from my presence…?”

“It attempted to gutter my spark by disabling certain environmental protections on my spark chamber,” Rung answered. “When that failed, it attempted to short-circuit my frame.”

Whirl shuttered his optic and fought the urge to squeeze Rung against him. Considering how fragged up his plating was, it'd probably hurt like the Pit. “If I hand you over to the doc for care, is it gonna happen again?”

“As long as it doesn't interpret the act as rejection, it should be safe.”

“Okay, slave coding? I'm handing my buddy over to the medic. Don't fry him again.” Whirl gingerly settled Rung in Ratchet's outstretched arms. “If I leave, is it—is it gonna make you claw your spark again?”

“You've ordered me not to do that.”

Whirl vented hard. “Is it gonna make you do something else to—to punish yourself?”

“Likely,” Rung said, shuttering his optics. “It is insistent that I put your care and wellbeing before my own. Disobedience will be punished.”

Whirl tried to keep the horror and rage and disgust in his field clamped close against his frame, where Rung couldn't feel it. “What if I tell you to do what Ratchet says and—and get better?”

The light came back into Rung's optics, and a little smile quirked at his mouth. “Then I shall.”

“Okay. Okay, I'm gonna go, and you're gonna stay with Ratchet until you're better, okay?” He hesitated. “Uh, unless staying with Ratchet means you gotta hurt yourself. Priority number one: get better.” His claws clicked with agitation and distress. “Doc, how long will that take?”

Ratchet had probably been scanning Rung since he got in the room. “A few cycles. Might keep him through the off-shift for observation.”

Whirl nodded. “Okay.” He wanted to say something like, _get well soon_ , because wasn't that what you said to sick friends? But what if the slave coding got mad at him for not getting well _fast_ enough? Ugh, he really wasn't designed to filter words like this!

He raised a claw in parting and fled.

***

Chromedome needed to do research on slave coding if he hoped to remove it; Ratchet had done all he could.

Without orders for what to do after getting better, Rung's pedes found their way to Whirl's door. He resisted pushing the button just long enough for his plating to start to sting.

Whirl answered immediately, panic flooding his field. “Doc! You okay?”

“I'm fine,” Rung answered automatically, and Whirl recoiled.

“You gotta be honest with me, okay?” Whirl pleaded. “Even if it's not what you think—what that fragged-up coding thinks I want to hear.”

“The coding will take time to remove,” Rung answered. “Otherwise, I am fully operational.”

Whirl nodded and ushered Rung into the habsuite. As the door clicked shut behind him, the coding bit at his knees, driving him to the floor. It had been standard for his previous masters to demand it; the code expected it.

A surprisingly gentle claw brushed his cheek, and Rung knew that Whirl would be able to teek the distress in his field. It wouldn't matter, though; he'd been through the steps often enough to know what came next.

“Oh, no, no, no,” Whirl said, flinching but not removing his claw. He reeked of fear. “I'm not—Rung, I'm _not_ , you can get up, or you can sit down, but I'm—I'm _not_ doing—whatever it is you think I'm doing.” He shuddered. “What the Pit did they do to you? Actually—no, first question, why do you have slave coding in the first place?”

“The Functionists.” He got to his feet, and Whirl pulled back to sit on the berth. The coding demanded he sit at his feet and rest his head against Whirl's leg—it knew what games it was expected to play. “My alt-mode has no function, so they saw fit to give me one.”

“You don't have to kneel on the ground,” Whirl pleaded. “If that's what you want, okay, fine. But—but I'd rather you be comfortable, okay?”

He was not comfortable on the floor, and he was therefore contradicting his Master's wishes. Rung rose and seated himself beside Whirl, bracing himself for what his frame—his very _spark—_ knew would be coming next. How many times had the Senators and the Functionists brought him home? Brought him to heel.

Painful as such...encounters...were, he had experience distancing himself from his frame. He knew how to end things quickly. Even with Whirl—even with Whirl, he would survive.

“Oh, doc,” Whirl said, brushing a gentle claw against his cheek. “What did they _do_ to you?”

Rung reset his vocalizer. The order stood: speak honestly. He had been trained to answer every question posed by his Master. “At first they simply examined me,” he said. “Surgery came next. They wanted to produce usefulness from me. When both failed, they experimented. Something akin to shadowplay.”

Whirl vented hard. “Surgery? Just—just like once, right?”

“I underwent forty-seven surgeries before they gave up.”

“Fragging—!” Whirl's claws clicked furiously. “And then they just—they—”

It was as if Whirl couldn't say it. The coding prompted him to be helpful. “Developed the slave coding, yes.”

“Frag.” Whirl's optic shuttered, and Rung was surprised by the grief washing through his field. “I'm not—I'm not sure what they did to you, doc, but that's—that not what I want.” Before the coding had time to take that as a rejection, he rushed to add, “But that doesn't mean you're not wanted!”

“Thank you, Master.”

“How could they do this?” Whirl shook. “They're dead now, right?”

“I was freed the day Starscream wiped out the Senate.”

“The Senate?”

“The Functionists controlled the Senate.”

Whirl put his helm in his claws and vented slowly. “What the Pit did they do to you?”

The question had been muttered, almost inaudible, but he was tuned to detect the slightest communication from his Master. The words started to pour from his voxcoder unbidden. “For the most part, I served as stress relief,” he answered. “When they were frustrated, they would order me to turn into something useful—perhaps a car or a jet. Of course I couldn't—you've seen my alt-mode, you know that I don't turn into anything they'd accept—but, _oh_ , how the coding would make me try! It has full access to my t-cog; it could pop transformation seams that were meant to remain still and intact. It could try to reconfigure me.” He looked down at his hands. “They'd make me put myself back together after the fact.”

A transformation gone awry could snap struts and limbs; he'd been ordered to drag himself to a medic when he couldn't even stand. Sometimes he still got aches in those transformation seams.

“Please tell—” Whirl reset his vocalizer and rephrased, “Was that all they did?”

“No.” Rung didn't want to remember—didn't want the phantom touches on his frame, didn't want the aching in his system. But he'd been asked a question—he'd been told to answer honestly. “I was also used as an interface charge sink,” he said.

They'd bled off their charge and provoked mechanical overloads that were purely pain for him. They'd rifled through his thoughts and data and taken without giving anything in return. They'd been able to use him to generate electrical sensation—had ordered him to provide tactile sensation—had forced him to—

“Doc? Are you okay?” Whirl's optic was much too close, his claw touching Rung's back when all contact made his plating crawl.

Rung's voice came out as static while the coding sorted the priority tree for orders. Honesty had more intention behind it—he had no choice. “No,” he answered, cleaning fluid welling up behind his glasses. “I didn't—I didn't want—”

That hadn't been the question; his vocalizer shut itself off.

“I'm sorry for speaking out of turn, Master.” Rote, memorized, familiar—the coding approved. “I am emotionally unwell but physically stable.”

“Why are you—?” Whirl froze, and Rung could pinpoint the moment realization struck him. “I told you to be honest. Scrap. _Scrap_. I just—I just didn't want to hear that empty voice, I wasn't _thinking—_ ” He reset his vocalizer repeatedly, teeking of unbridled distress. “Is there something I can do to help?”

His processor fought the coding. Be honest, but don't reject Master! Well, what was he supposed to do? One had been an outright order—it took priority. “I—I would rather not be touched, if—”

Whirl yanked his claw away. “I just—it calmed you down last time, so I thought—” He clawed at the sides of his helm, and Rung slid automatically to his knees on the floor at the sight of his Master in distress.

“I'm sorry,” Rung said. “I'm sorry, please—” Ah, but the code knew he didn't deserve a chance to beg without permission, and he'd upset Master, and he had failed in the only function ever granted to him. “Ple—” Though he started again, the coding clamped down on his voxcoder, reducing him to muted static. His armor clattered as the coding sent pins and needles weaving through his mesh.

“Oh, scrap, oh, scrap.” Whirl knelt beside him, not touching him. “Not mad at you! You—you haven't, uh, displeased me! It's okay!”

The code begged to differ, but then Whirl sucked in his agonized EM field, and it quieted.

Rung panted, open-mouthed, on the floor, his fans working at full capacity as it cooled the burn of attempted short-circuiting.

“It's not good for you to be around me,” Whirl mumbled. “Uh, okay, new orders. Um. You go about your day to day life like—like you did before you imprinted on me. So, uh. You can go back to your office, or to Swerve's, or—or whatever it is you do. And you don't have to make appointments with me, okay? I'll just—I'll lay low. It'll be okay.”

Rung wheezed, not quite laughing. If only it were so simple.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rung tries at explanation, Whirl tries at comfort.

Of course he had not been able to tell Whirl, who had not asked—the slave coding was not and would never be satisfied with an order followed by abandonment. For every orn without _serving_ , it ate away at him. He obeyed, certainly—but obedience hadn't been enough for the Functionists. They had wanted _devotion_.

Whirl stayed true to his word, lying low. Rung had been ordered to go about his business as he had before, and so he obeyed—but obedience in the form of self-care was _suffering_. The Functionists had primed the coding to put himself last, to treat every act that benefited him as shameful. He was meant to be _serving_.

Obedience and servitude typically aligned, but Whirl had ordered him to do the one thing that could never satisfy the code. It was rejection without rejection. His fuel lines itched constantly, heating but not to the point of actual damage. Whirl had forbidden self-harm and -mutilation; he had not ordered relaxation or a well-maintained slave.

The coding did not allow Rung to recharge without attending to his Master's needs. The coding did not allow him to consume fuel without first assessing the energy levels of his Master. Slowly but surely, he began to starve.

He had not explicitly been forbidden from starving himself to death, and his coding shrieked that he deserved far worse. His Master was suffering because he had _failed_. His Master was avoiding social contact for fear of encountering him. _You are the worst,_ the coding insisted. _You obey but harm your Master. You should resign from your post and devote yourself to him._

He had already conferred with Ratchet and dropped Whirl as a patient due to obvious conflicting interests—in line with Whirl's wishes—but Whirl had insisted he spend his time as he had before, and he _couldn't_ disobey, he _couldn't_ throw himself at Whirl's pedes and plead for the beating he clearly deserved. He couldn't beg for a chance to prove himself, lay himself out for humiliation and absolution alike, offer himself for his Master's use.

This was his punishment: a life of servitude with no one to serve.

His tanks running on fumes, his processor having gone more than a decaorn without a proper defrag cycle, he stumbled into Swerve's—and there, there he was.

He fought the urge to throw himself at his Master's pedes and sob—this was a public setting. He had been trained better than that.

But as he struggled to approach his Master, his empty tanks began to whine, and his vision glitched. It was agony of the worst kind—relief was in sight, his _Master_ was in sight, and he could not serve.

Whirl looked over and froze as Rung stumbled. _Clumsy slave, embarrassing your Master!_ The coding bit at him. _You should know better. You are worthless. Granted a function and you won't even_ try _to perform it. Useless, lazy drone._

Even so, Whirl deigned to come over to him, worry crackling in his field. “Fragging—doc, what's wrong?”

“Fuel levels at three percent,” Rung answered, as a droid should. “Defragmentation protocols uninitiated for twelve orns.”

“Twelve—” Panic blossomed across his Master's field, and Rung bowed his head in shame. “You haven't recharged since I—” Whirl grabbed Rung by the servo and hauled him up to the bar. “Swerve, Rung needs fuel. I don't care what kind of fuel, but he needs it _now_.”

“Something that'll sit okay in an empty tank?” Swerve asked, casting a sidelong look at Rung. “And why are you the one—”

“Shut up and get him some damn fuel, you aft!” Whirl's guns onlined, and Swerve backpedaled, scrambling for a cube.

When he pushed it at Rung, he did not accept it.

“Rung, drink the fragging energon,” Whirl said, his voice desperate.

“I should not until you have—”

“Is that what's been—scrap, Rung, I just topped off, now _drink_!”

Rung drank, almost dizzy as the high-grade hit his systems. “Thank you,” he said, biting down on the word _master_. Not appropriate in a public setting without explicit orders—he'd been trained well.

“You can drink that while we walk,” Whirl said. Rung stumbled hastily to follow as he made for the exit. “You need to recharge as soon as you're done with that, okay?”

“Yes,” Rung agreed. His plating finally smoothed over, the constant itch to self-harm fading. “Thank you.”

He refueled as they made their way through the halls to Whirl's habsuite, and he felt giddy and overcharged when he stumbled through the door, automatically dropping to his knees as it shut behind them.

“Permission to speak freely, Master?” Rung asked, not daring to meet his optic.

“Wha—of course!” Whirl's field swirled with confusion. “Yes, permission, uh, granted.”

“Thank you so much for the second chance, Master,” Rung sobbed, his optics sparking as he pressed his head to the floor. “I'll—I'll do anything, I'll do anything, please, anything you need. Anything you want.”

The coding told him he didn't deserve to plead his case, but he'd been granted permission despite the insubordinate request. He raised his head just enough to see Whirl's claws clicking.

“If you'll have me, you—you can take me apart, you can tell me to do anything, I'll service you, I won't complain, I'll be silent—unless you want me to scream! I can scream, _please_ , Master, _please_.”

Whirl staggered backwards to fall onto the berth, and the slave coding had been conditioned for nonverbal behaviors, too. Rung's spark casing immediately folded back, and he presented himself before his Master.

“It's _yours_ ,” he insisted. “Please— _please._ ”

“Oh scrap,” Whirl said. “Rung—Rung, _no_.”

Exposed as it was, both of them could see the moment Rung's spark flickered with agony. His voxcoder muted itself before he could howl with pain. His permission had been revoked—he had been denied—he had offered _everything_ and been found wanting—

Whirl's touch against his cheek stilled him even as his optics flared and flickered.

“I'm so sorry,” Whirl said. “Please, please just—coding, okay, please listen to me. I need to talk to Rung for five kliks without interference, okay? So stop—stop _hurting_ him and let me talk, okay? Five kliks. I want five kliks without being terrified I'm gonna kill my only friend because I can't keep my fragging vocalizer muted. Okay?”

A timer appeared in the corner of Rung's HUD, and he collapsed as the pain left him. “Five kliks granted. The coding is still in effect, but it has ceased punishing me.”

“What did I do?” Whirl pleaded. “I—I tried to stay out of your way! Why'd you starve yourself? Why'd you stop sleeping? How can I—how can I make this _stop_?”

“You can't,” Rung said. “It—it _needs_ orders. I need orders. it's programmed to make me serve, not just obey.”

“I don't understand the difference.”

“If it merely made me obedient, there would still be defiance in my spark.” Rung's voice soured. “They wanted my _devotion_. They reprogrammed me so that my first priority—before all others—is to attend to my Master's needs and desires. I must obey, but I am punished every moment I am not serving my Master. Any moment taken for myself.”

“I fragged everything up.” Whirl's voice cracked with static. “Rung, please tell me what to do.”

“I can't—” His vocalizer fritzed; he couldn't order his Master about, but he couldn't disobey, either. The direct order took priority, and his vocalizer reset. “I need orders. I know—I know you don't want to order me around, and I'm _sorry_ , Master, I'm _sorry_.” Oh, more than a decaorn of suffering had ensured he was _very_ sorry. “They primed me to have orders every waking moment; I was constantly serving them. It's what they designed me for.”

“They didn't _design_ you.” Whirl pressed the side of his helm to Rung's cheek, and the contempt in his field stung. “They—they _tortured_ you in fragged-up ways, ways I've never even—” His vocalizer reset. “Okay, you need orders, right. Well, here's an order: tell me what you need and why. If I don't understand this scrap, it's gonna—gonna hurt you again.”

“I served the entire Senate for about two hundred eighty vorns,” Rung said, answering the _why_ before the _what_. “I'm used to continuous service.”

“So—so I need to stick close? Give you stuff to do?”

Pride and hope and joy flooded Rung's spark without warning. He'd been found worthy of presenting his service. “Yes. _Please_. I'll—I'll do anything.”

“Okay, I'm—I'm trying to talk to Rung, here, okay? Not the coding. So just—Rung, tell me what you _want_ to do. What would get the code off your back and also make you happy?”

The coding answered _serve_ , but Rung took a moment to seriously consider his Master's question. “Feeding you. Polishing you.” Those had been his most relaxing tasks during his time serving the Senate. “Caretaking activities that involve little to no pain.”

“Okay.” Whirl vented hard and pulled back to look at him. “So if I—this is so fragged up—so if I ask you to stay here with me until Chromedome gets the coding sorted out, and I have you feed me and maintain me and scrap, it'll stop hurting you? You'll recharge and refuel and—and be about as okay as—as you can be?”

“Yes, Master.”

“And touch—it's like it helps sometimes and makes everything worse other times, and _I don't know what to do_.”

“The coding is happiest when we are in physical contact,” Rung agreed. “It sometimes brings me back to...” He hesitated. “Experiences with past masters.”

Whirl's claws clicked in agitation. “What do you want me to do?”

“Time's up,” Rung answered, cringing as his plating began to itch again. Being asked what a pathetic, worthless piece of trash such as himself wanted? No, no—that was not his purpose. “I—what I want is immaterial. However, for the most part, it is more comfortable to be touched.”

“Okay.” His Master pulled him into a hug, and the coding sighed with relief. “Here's an order for you, though: if something's hurting you or—or upsetting you, or distressing you, or any number of synonyms I can't come up with right now—you have to tell me. Okay? And then you have to tell me how to make it _stop_ hurting or upsetting or whatever-ing you, got it?”

“Yes, Master.” An unorthodox request, but his Master's field was adamant. The priority tree resorted itself. “Master, I am very tired. May I attend to your needs so that I may rest?”

Oh, that pinched at the code, but he'd been given a direct order for the first time in far too long. It had been hungrier than his frame, and it would take whatever it was given.

“Consider my needs attended to,” Whirl said, hugging him tighter. “Orders fulfilled. Recharge already.”

***

The frame in his arms went immediately slack, and Whirl vented with relief. Twelve orns without a defrag cycle could wreck a bot's processor! And Rung's processor was really important—way more important than most mechs'.

He picked up the sleeping bot and carried him to the berth. Rung had said the touch helped, so he stayed put, wrapping himself around the only mech he'd actually called a friend. The EM field thing was hard, but he did his best to project something like pride.

Truth be told, he was fragging impressed that Rung had survived all that scrap. Whirl had lost his hands to the Senate—the Functionists, apparently—but he'd kept his mind.

Whirl had gone on to be angry for four million years, while Rung spent the entire time quietly trying to heal the minds of other mechs—mechs like Fort Max, who'd held a gun to Rung's head. And what had Rung done? Petted Max's back and reassured him that things would be okay.

Tracing a claw along Rung's transformation seams, he remembered what Rung had said—his t-cog being controlled to twist and shape him in impossible ways. And what he'd said after—

Whirl curled tighter around the little mech. He'd been tough enough to rip the spark out of anyone who tried that kind of scrap on him, but Rung was _small_ and _gentle_ and disobedience apparently prompted his own damn frame to start frying him alive. And from the resignation he'd felt in Rung's field, he'd expected the same of Whirl. When he'd seen Whirl fall on the berth, his chest plates had parted immediately—the same kind of immediacy he'd had when answering, 'I'm fine.'

They'd taken his spark. Whirl wasn't religious, but a spark—a spark was _sacred_. And they'd made him offer his so routinely that the coding just _expected_ it.

And that horrifying moment when that bright and glittering spark had nearly flickered out because he'd said the wrong fragging thing for the umpteenth time had been all he needed to convince himself that he would do _anything_ to keep it lit and glowing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rung has a flare, Whirl is more helpful than either of them expected.

Even before Rung fully onlined, he knew he was in for it. He couldn't brace himself against the pain in his joints and pistons and cables, but he could keep his optics offline to reduce sensory input.

“Rung, you okay?” Whirl mumbled, clearly half asleep.

“No,” he answered honestly. He'd been ordered to identify what hurt and why, even if speaking hurt. “I am in pain.” His processor fought the fog to find the words to explain _why_ as Whirl roused himself. “This happens sometimes. The surgeries—if I push myself too hard, old pains—” He flinched as Whirl shifted. “There is no command you can give to make this go away.”

“Well, is there anything I can _do_?” Whirl asked. “I dunno, something to make it hurt less?”

That had not been phrased as an order—the distress the very thought caused the slave coding met criteria for a more important tier on the priority tree. “Being served by my Master causes the coding distress,” Rung managed.

Whirl let out a long, whining groan, and Rung's processor ached at the sound. As he came around, the fog lifted—but pain took its place. His processor practically sparked as it took in the sensory feedback from his Master's touch, his EM field, his voice—but he could not tune him out. The implied order in an embrace was _stillness_ , but his transformation seams—his joints, his _everything—_ ached.

“Well, tell the coding to stuff it and let Master do what he wants,” Whirl muttered. “And then tell _me_ how to make you feel better.”

The authority in his tired voice made the code go silky and compliant, and Rung relaxed against him. “An oil bath is ideal,” he answered. “A massage is the second best.”

“A massage in a hot oil bath sounds awful nice,” Whirl muttered. “Bet Ratchet's got one. Lemme comm him.” He began running a gentle claw along Rung's side—not hard enough to be what he needed to get the pain to abate, but Rung had seen the claws slice a mech in half, so perhaps that was for the best. “Hey, Ratch? Rung's all achy and needs a hot oil bath.” Rung couldn't hear Ratchet's reply, but Whirl snorted in derision. “Look, if he's gonna be my responsibility, I'm gonna do this _right_. Tell Rodders we're commandeering his oil bath. If he's got somethin' to say about it, I'll be commandeering the damn ship next. Whirl out!”

Whirl scooped Rung off the berth, carefully supporting his head, and Rung melted against him. The pain made each movement _ache_ , but his slave coding was silent—it was bliss.

“Good boy,” Whirl said, and pride flooded Rung's spark involuntarily. “Let's get you into that bath.”

***

Whirl did indeed commandeer the ex-Prime's oil bath. He also commandeered enough towels to wrap up his sharp claws so he could massage Rung.

“Good, Rung,” he said. “Good job. That's right. Let me take care of you”

Any time Rung tensed and teeked of distress, those seemed to be the magic words. Whirl settled the little mech in his lap once the tub had filled and carefully worked him over. He hadn't used his claws like this before, but he could get Rung to direct him, and he learned pretty quick. The constant stream of praise and reassurance did wonders for the pain in Rung's field, too.

Still, he could tell whenever the code started nibbling at him. Guilt and anxiety and agony would dance through Rung's field, acute and awful—and he could push them back with the _right_ words, but he'd already seen that the wrong ones could cook Rung in his own plating. He felt like he was balancing on a tightwire with his rotors locked.

“How often does this happen?” He'd never seen Rung down for the count like this—but Rung knew exactly what to do, so he'd clearly had time to get used to it.

“Every few decaorns,” Rung replied.

Whirl cycled his optic. “So it's happened while we've been on the ship?”

“Four or five times, yes.”

“Pit, doc, what've you been doing when it happens?” Ratchet had been too surprised by the demand for Rung to have asked—and who would've been his masseuse?

“I wait it out,” Rung answered.

Whirl would've gaped if he had a face. He could _feel_ the physical pain in Rung's field. He knew pain—better than any decent mech, really, even if he didn't care to play with his prey—and this was serious. When Rung moved, it looked like every bit of his frame was protesting.

Ah, scrap, the tension was coming back— “Well, you're gonna comm me from now on, okay?” he said. “Let me take care of you.” Rung went limp in his arms, and he vented with relief, kneading the achy transformation seams. “Good boy. Just like that.”

And wasn't that the weirdest thing to say to a mech outside of the berth? But Rung's field teeked of happiness, so whatever. Nobody was listening to the embarrassing conversation anyway.

“Also, you can say or not say whatever you want,” Whirl said. “I like conversating with you, doc, but only when you're _you_ , so talk like you would without the code.” He hesitated as the frame beneath his claws winced. “Uh, if that's a bad order that's gonna hurt you somehow, please tell me so I can take it back.”

“It's just—” Rung broke off. “It's not a bad order, no. I just didn't expect this.”

“I know what you expected.” Whirl's fuel tank churned at the memory of Rung's bared spark. “Do you want to talk about it?” Rung made a groggy sound of distress, and Whirl backpedaled. “Remember—you're supposed to let me take care of you, okay? Bad code, trying to make my—my slave disobedient when I wanna ask him what he wants. _Bad_ code, you stop that right now.”

Rung actually laughed. “You know that I would do anything you ordered.”

Whirl onlined his vocalizer to make a snappy remark about _yeah, that's why I need to run everything I say through like fifty filters_ , but then he rethought the statement and reset his vocalizer. “Yeah,” he said, voice even quieter and more serious than he'd intended. “Yeah, I know.”

They bathed in silence for a long moment, Whirl's claws still carefully working over Rung's frame.

“This good?” he asked. “I mean, I don't have actual hands, but am I getting the right spots?”

“Yes,” Rung said. “Thank you, Master.”

It kind of grossed him out when he realized he was getting _used_ to being called Master. “Good,” he said. “Good boy.”

Rung relaxed against him, helm resting on Whirl's arm because his fragging gun-tits got in the way of everything. “Why are you doing this, Whirl?”

“Good boy,” Whirl said automatically as Rung's frame began to tense again. “Good. Asking questions like I told you. Good.” The warm flush of pride in Rung's field was intoxicating. He didn't know how to answer, though. “You deserve good stuff, doc,” he said, after a moment. “You're about the only mech out there who thinks I _have_ any good in me after all these vorns. I gotta at least try.”

“I'm so sorry that I misjudged you before,” Rung said, guilt pulling the pride from his field. “I hoped for good in you, but I didn't always see it. When—when Fortress Maximus—” He broke off and reset his vocalizer. “You were trying to keep his attention on you, weren't you? You weren't trying to rile him up.”

“Got it in one, doc,” Whirl would've grinned if he could've. “That's my smart boy.”

Rung's field flared with pleasure and delight at the praise. “That was very brave of you.”

Whirl puffed up with false pride. “Damn right it was.” No need to mention that it wouldn't have mattered if Max had taken the shot as long as the shot was pointed at Whirl and not Rung. He was about as useful as a pile of scrap; not one person in the galaxy would've thought twice about him once they'd melted down his frame. “You were way braver, though,” he admitted, his touch softening against Rung. “You held him. Said it'd be okay. After he tried to kill you.”

“Max went through something not unlike the torture I experienced at the hands of the Functionists.” Rung hesitated, and it hit Whirl that maybe—maybe that meant Rung wanted somebody to hold _him_ and say it'd be okay. Before he could, though, Rung continued, “At least Overlord had no mnemosurgeons on hand to tame him.”

Whirl couldn't stop himself from nuzzling the top of Rung's helm, the sudden and overwhelming desire to protect the little nerd sneaking up on him. “I saw some of Rewind's footage—they didn't do all _that_ to you, did they?”

When Rung didn't answer, his spark chilled.

“Rung?”

“They stripped me down to the protoform, and then they took that apart, too,” His voice sounded very distant. “Attempted to rebuild me. I've kept my original form, but none of my parts are original.”

Whirl kneaded a claw against the base of Rung's neck, and he relaxed.

“I did everything they told me to,” he said. “Everything. And they asked so much more than you have.” He turned his head away from Whirl, and shame shadowed his field. “I wouldn't blame you for taking more. Anyone would.”

“Would you?”

Rung hesitated. “Sometimes I wonder,” he admitted, and guilt flared in his field. “If I had this power over the Senators—the Functionists—”

“That's different,” Whirl said immediately. “They fragged you up. You should _want_ to get revenge! Pit, _I_ want to get revenge so bad that I'm ticked they're dead so I can't kill 'em.” He shook his helm. “If—if you had me as a slave, what would you do with me?”

Horror and distress coursed through Rung, so sharp and sour that Whirl jerked back.

“Uh, scratch that! Shh, shh, it's okay.” He petted Rung's helm while he scrambled for words. “So, uh, coding doesn't like that idea. Uh, okay, uh, what if you had—had Skids as a slave?”

Rung's distress dimmed. “I don't know what I'd do.” Static broke across his voice. “I don't know how I'd keep him safe.” He looked up at Whirl and removed his glasses to reveal the most sincere optics he'd ever seen. “You are doing an admirable job of keeping me safe, Whirl. I'm—I'm fortunate it was you.”

Whirl wanted to laugh and scoff, but his voxcoder seemed to be stuck. He looked into those optics and felt—felt more whole than he had since he'd lost his chronometers and hands and face. “You're a good mech, Rung,” he said instead. “That voice that tells me to do good things has been quiet for a long time, but you—but you make it easier to hear.”

Rung released him from the piercing gaze, sagging with exhaustion against Whirl. “I had misjudged you,” he said. “I had thought that you'd been subjected to empurata for a murder of some kind. I had thought that you were always a fighter. But they tried to make you into a weapon in the same way they tried to make me into a service droid, didn't they?” He laughed, but it sounded almost like a sob. “They took what they wanted from all of us.”

“If you're gonna be a weapon, might as well be the best damn weapon there is,” Whirl said lightly.

“You stopped listening to that voice because they punished you every time you tried,” Rung said. “You gave up the air corps to peacefully make watches—and they tried to take away your ability to build. And then they never let you go.” He looked down at his hands, clenching them into fists. “I'm sorry, Whirl.”

“You don't gotta be sorry about that, doc,” Whirl said. “Here, lemme take care of you. What needs massaging?”

Rung shifted to indicate his hip joint, and Whirl immediately obliged.

“Good boy,” he said, trying to work under the hot oil with towels on his claws. Kinda messy and cumbersome, but his claws could and _had_ split armor, and he wasn't risking that. “Good. Let me take care of you.” That order, at least, seemed to be safe.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rung feeds Whirl, Whirl feeds Rung.

The flare lasted for orns. Rung's slave coding protested every micrometer of the way, but then Whirl would soothe him and praise him, and self-loathing and abasement would turn to pride. Master was satisfied with Rung. The coding wanted Rung to devote himself to Whirl—to lay himself bare and strip himself raw providing for Whirl's needs and desires—but Master's word was absolute.

What Master wanted was for Rung to behave himself, the code decided. He had occasionally been treated like a doll or a pet, though only rarely—still, it was the closest the code could come to recognition. So it had left him docile and pliant beneath his claws even as it anticipated—eagerly awaited—the blows it had learned to expect.

But Whirl never once struck him.

Not once in all his time interacting with Whirl had Rung suspected he could be so gentle. He had woken to find the claws around his waist blunted and dull—no longer capable of harming him even accidentally. At worst, they might dent him—but no more than a servo might. The tips had been filed down to rounded nubs, the blade-like edges smoothed until they were softer than some bots' fingertips.

Had he been online while Whirl did this, the code would have asked him to intervene—to stop Master from harming himself. But he'd been deep in recharge and could not rebuke his Master.

“Drink,” Whirl said, giving him a cube of energon. “I already topped off.”

And Rung drank. When told to recharge, he obeyed. And even the smallest act of self-care provoked at least three _good boy_ s from his Master, and he soon felt as if he had begun to glow, lit from within.

Even so, the coding was _thrilled_ when the flare released him, and he woke for the first time in a decaorn to a processor not clouded by pain. He vented in relief.

“Somebody woke up in a good mood,” Whirl mumbled. He nuzzled the top of Rung's helm, and affection washed through his EM field—the coding lit up with delight. “You feeling better, then?”

“Yes, Master. Thanks in large part to your care.” Rung smiled, easing into Whirl's embrace. “May I return the favor by caring for you?”

“It's almost too bad,” Whirl said, his voice slurred—and Rung realized he had not yet come fully online. “I liked takin' care of ya. Made me feel good.”

“You did an excellent job,” Rung said, his coding torn between delight at Master's approval and the horrifying prospect of being served rather than performing his function.

“ _You_ did an excellent job,” Whirl muttered, cuddling up to Rung so that he was wrapped around his Master's cockpit. “G'boy. Ver' good.”

That coupled with the deep, sleepy affection in Whirl's field made the code sing—but his spark glowed entirely of its own accord. It could feel the steady pulse of his Master's spark beyond the glass and armor, only barely parted from itself. It wanted to be one spark—to be joined to the one mech whom it trusted to manage the code.

The code reminded him that any longing amounted to exactly nothing. He did not deserve his Master's affections. He would be taken; this was Right. He would be given nothing; this was Correct.

And yet the affection washed over him through Whirl's tired field, and, for a moment, Rung could pretend he was worthy.

“Mm, right,” Whirl said, onlining his optic. “The code gets ya if you don't get orders. Right, uh. What was it you said?”

“I would enjoy feeding you,” Rung said. “And detailing you.”

“Pit, I haven't gone for a buff or polish in four million years.” Whirl laughed. “I don't know what I'll look like with a shiny aft like Rodders.” He ran a blunted claw down Rung's spinal strut. “Sure. You can feed me. It'll be a little tricky with the lack of mouth and all, but I can give you some pointers.”

Rung could not bring himself to pull away from Whirl's embrace; instead he tilted his helm up to meet his optic. His voice came out soft and sweeter than he'd meant—more tender. “Is there anything else I can give you, Master?”

Whirl's plating heated, and Rung faced a split second where he endured equal parts terror and elation. Then Whirl pulled—gently, carefully—away, making sure to maintain enough contact that the code wouldn't take it as a rejection.

“If Swerve's were open, I might go for some of that bubbly purple stuff he sells,” he said, the claw at Rung's waist massaging the bundle of cables that had pinched nonstop for the last decaorn. With the pain absent, the soothing gesture felt like bliss. “But it's not, so I just wanna sit tight with my buddy and have one of the cubes I've got stashed under the spare berth.”

“May I get you a cube, Master?”

“Yeah,” Whirl said, easing his claw away from Rung's hip. “Get one for yourself, too. You're gonna refuel as soon as your code stops fussing about me.”

Rung rose immediately to retrieve the cubes, the coding delighted to finally— _finally—_ be fulfilling its purpose. He carefully climbed around Whirl—who insisted on sleeping between Rung and the door—and knelt to gather the cubes beneath the other berth. Whirl was still lying down when he turned, but he'd rolled over to watch Rung, his optic as inscrutable as ever.

Rung hesitated beside the bed. “How shall I feed you, Master?”

Whirl pushed himself to a sitting position, bringing his helm level with the standing Rung. “How do you usually do this?”

Rung chewed on his lower lip, fighting back embarrassment and shame. “My previous masters had me feed them in a wide variety of ways.”

Whirl's optic narrowed, and trepidation passed through his field before he reined it back in. “Like what?”

“I—” Rung hesitated. “Their preferred method was to slit one of my fuel lines and drink.”

His Master's EM field remained tight against his armor, out of Rung's reach. “Did you like that?”

Rung shook his head. “It was better than—than some other activities,” he said, “but no, I did not enjoy it. Even so, at least you would refuel me afterward. If you want—”

“What other ways can we do this?”

“Others enjoyed mouth to mouth feeding,” he answered. “Many of the Functionists underwent empurata, and I am therefore familiar with the relevant techniques.”

Whirl's optic offlined as one of his cooling fans kicked on, and Rung began to mentally prepare himself to become a drinking vessel, but then his Master spoke. “Did you enjoy that?”

“No,” Rung admitted, his code _burning_ at the word. “They often bit my lips to flavor their energon if they had denta; those with proboscides would siphon the energon from my throat.” They had enjoyed deliberately provoking his gag reflex and then punishing him for wasting fuel. Into his own tanks or onto the floor—either had resulted in a beating. “But I don't believe you would try to choke me, so—”

“Okay, better question.” Whirl vented hard. “What's the most fun way for you to feed me? Like, a way you would actually enjoy, like you said?”

“I—I would be honored to hand-feed you, Master,” Rung managed, his plating itching at the _presumption_ and _impertinence_ of such a statement. “But I would be happy to feed you in any way that you desire.”

“I think hand-feeding sounds nice,” Whirl said. “C'mon. I'm hungry.”

That jarred Rung out of his hesitation. “Of course, Master,” he said. He hurried to set aside the cube Whirl had told him to procure for himself, then came to kneel beside his Master on the berth. His knees shook, and Whirl immediately steadied him with a claw against his hips.

“Good Rung,” he said, pushing a deliberate and obvious pulse of reassurance through his field. “Very good.”

Rung felt as if the praise had lit a glow beneath his plating, and he dared to look up and smile shyly at his Master. He brought the cube up to the little gap he knew to expect between Whirl's pedipalps.

To his utter humiliation, his own cooling fans kicked on when Whirl's proboscis extended to siphon the energon. Whirl didn't jump at the noise—just rubbed a soothing claw against the sensitive cables in Rung's hip.

“Very good,” Whirl said, his voxcoder not at all dampened by drinking. The proboscis actually directed the fuel around it, enabling clear speech in almost any circumstance. “You're doing a great job, Rung.”

The humiliation and shame ebbed. It felt—it felt _right_ and _good_ to be serving his Master. His cooling fans had not offended his Master; his Master approved of his actions.

“Okay, now I get to feed you,” Whirl said. When Rung looked with confusion and surprise at the half-full cube, he laughed. “Turn-taking. Tell the code to stuff it, okay? I wanna practice.” His optic curved in a smile. “Now—tell me the truth—how do you _want_ to be fed?”

Rung's mouth hung open. He needed to answer, but his processor seemed too full of static—another of his cooling fans kicked on. “I—I—”

“Hey, hey, no need to be embarrassed,” Whirl said. “Bet they didn't feed you, right? Well, I _want_ to, so I'm gonna. And I need you to help me make up my mind.”

“I—” Rung ducked his head, but the coding had only to hear the word _help_ to make the order go from imperative to desire. “I've always been curious about—about—”

“Lemme guess—the fuel line thing?”

Rung nodded mutely.

“All right, let's see if we can work out the geometry.”

Rung's spark _burned_ with shock and joy and _want_. “You don't—” He couldn't reprimand his Master! “It will hurt, Master.”

Whirl flicked his claws dismissively. “A little cut's nothin' to me, doc. This'll be fun.” He took the half-full cube from Rung and set it beside the other one on the floor. “And you'll get to hand-feed me an extra cube. You'll like that, right?”

He nodded at once. Yes— _yes_ , he would.

“Good. C'mon—lie down up here. I got an idea.”

Rung's frame went limp and compliant as Whirl arranged them. Soon he'd positioned Rung to lie astride his cockpit with his mouth against his Master's throat. Rung's spark thrummed with anticipation, and Whirl ran a gentle claw along his spinal strut.

“There we go,” he said, his engine purring beneath Rung. “One more time, and I want the absolute, complete, and total truth—do you want to drink from my fuel lines?”

Rung shook. “ _Yes_ ,” he said, awed and honored and so full of _want_ that static filled his voice. “Yes, Master, yes.”

Satisfaction filled his Master's field as he tipped his helm up to expose his throat. “Be a good slave and bite, then.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rung gets some relief, Whirl... was not expecting that.

The overwhelming amount of _need_ and _desire_ in Rung's field were immensely gratifying. It was a bite, a little energon—he'd sure as the Pit had worse, and it'd never made anybody this ecstatic.

Rung mouthed gently at his throat, and he melted. Pit, he'd feed Rung like this every damn day if he kept that up. Soft and almost loving, the lips mapped out a spot he knew was directly above a main fuel line. When Rung's denta brushed against the cables there, his cooling fans kicked on.

And then Rung hesitated, anxiety flashing in his field, distorting the joy.

“I told you to bite me,” he said, trying to sound authoritative, but it probably sounded like a plea. “ _Bite_.”

Rung bit, and a sudden rush of charge crackled across Whirl's frame. He went slack against Rung. He'd spent every klik of the last two decaorns worried—but with his frame singing with charge, he could barely remember why.

It took about a hundred times more effort than he expected to focus, to make sure he didn't accidentally hurt Rung, didn't accidentally—oh, frag, of course, he could manually mute his vocalizer.

He relaxed again, static crackling in his throat, rumbling against Rung's lips.

When Rung released his grip on Whirl's throat, Whirl could feel the energon rising to the surface—just a minor scratch, nothing serious, something he wouldn't even think to take to the medbay—and then Rung began to lap at the cut, and his engine revved.

Rung's glossa on his throat—on his exposed, vulnerable throat, soft and needy and perfect—he offlined his optic and _felt_.

The field intermingling with his own was flooded with _pride_ and _worship_ and a high, keening desire that built into a whine in the back of Rung's throat. He sucked at Whirl's throat, his servos shaking as they tried to bring him closer.

Every flare of arousal that slipped into Whirl's field seemed to send him into a frenzy. The vibrations of his lips as he whimpered against Whirl's throat grew nearly frantic—he reached up to touch the side of Whirl's helm with tender, trembling _awe—_ he shifted with clear desire against Whirl's windshield, plating flushed and warm—

The warm plating was what pulled Whirl back from the precipice. He'd almost onlined his vocalizer—almost asked if he could touch Rung, stimulate those sensitive hip cables and the bundle of nerves at the base of his spark plating. He'd almost asked to hear him moan.

He couldn't. He curled a protective arm around Rung and panted, his voice shot through with so much static that he doubted any of the words got through. “You're so good, Rung,” he said. “You're doing such a good job. I'm so proud of you.”

Rung twisted and whined with the praise, grinding up against the sensitive gun barrel at the end of his cockpit. “Thank you so much,” he said—and frag if that wasn't the sexiest voice he'd ever heard in his life. All of Rung's usual warmth burning with need and joy and arousal of his own. “Thank you so, so much, Master.”

Master, right. Right, this was the coding at work. Rung wanted to be fed like this, yeah, but the coding primed him for interface—and it didn't count if you got a yes out of somebody who couldn't say no. Frag, even if Rung hadn't been affected by the coding, he wasn't in a right state of mind to make decisions—

Rung's spark chamber opened, and Whirl could _feel_ it tingling against his windshield. His fans roared as his processor stuttered to a halt.

His own spark chamber attempted to spiral open, to fold away the cockpit and bring Rung flush against him, to— _no_!

“You're so good,” Whirl reassured him, stroking his back. He sent five manual overrides in a row to stop his spark from exposing itself. “You're doing so well.”

Rung _ground_ his spark against Whirl's chassis, and static burst from Whirl's voxcoder. He had to physically reach up to keep his chest plates pressed together—the manual override did scrap all against the pull of that spark.

“You have the brightest spark I've ever seen,” Whirl found himself saying. “Do you have any idea how fragging hot you are? I want to—” He muted his vocalizer and keened, forcing himself to swallow the words. He _couldn't_. “I want you to drink your fill,” he said, hoping it'd cover the lapse. “Can you do that for me?”

Rung whimpered, clearly beyond words, and lapped again at Whirl's throat. Soft and insistent and needy—Whirl felt about ready to melt into the berth. He'd gone strutless and weak and it was only the claw forcing his chassis to stay closed that kept him from baring his spark or interfacing equipment. Primus knew Rung would take it as a command to serve as a capacitor, and that—that was _so far_ from anything Whirl wanted that it was almost sobering.

“How much have you drunk, babe?” he asked.

Rung's lips remained against the cut, venting hot stinging air against the wound. “About—about half a cube's worth,” he said. “Shall I—Master, shall I—”

“You're doing such a good job,” Whirl said, petting Rung with the claw that wasn't keeping his sparkplating in check. “Good boy. Good, good.” He needed to think about _anything_ but that glossa. “You'll have to polish that spot extra well, huh?” A staticky laugh nearly masked his moan, and he squeezed Rung's hip to anchor himself. “You're going to be so good, I know it. You're so damn good at everything.”

***

His Master's praise coursed through Rung's frame like fire. Pressed up against his Master's chassis, bathed in an EM field that positively _sang_ with arousal and adoration and approval, he drank from _Master's own energon_.

The honor of it made the coding reel. It had been so close to unthinkable—an offense that might have roasted him alive—until the code had recognized the _need_ in Whirl's voice. The code would do _anything_ to oblige that tone. And so it warmed with purpose and delight as Rung's spark flared in giddy, terrified arousal.

Beneath him, Whirl's engine revved, sending vibrations coursing up and down his frame—directly through his exposed spark. Rung ground harder against the sensation, every circuit primed and alert with need. His Master's spark seemed to call back, so very, very close to his—

He drew shaking hands along his Master's frame, finding spots that amplified the approval and arousal in the field that enveloped him. The throat beneath his lips rumbled with staticky praise and pleas alike, and each fulfilled order sent satisfaction straight to Rung's core.

The energon against his lips and glossa was thick and unfiltered, rich with minerals and flavor that marked it as Master's. He drank and fulfilled his purpose and was praised for his good work.

His Master's engine revved again, and he trembled into the sensation, unable to stop himself from burying his face into Whirl's neck and crying out.

“Master, please may I—” Charge rippled like agony through his frame, too good and strong to endure and survive. “Master, _please—_ ”

“Yes,” his Master answered, the voice rumbling beneath Rung's lips, and the world splintered.

***

Rung jerked sharply, his spark lighting up as charge suddenly dispersed against his frame. It wasn't until Rung went limp on the berth that Whirl realized he'd overloaded.

 _Scrap_ , that was definitely the kind of thing he should've talked through first! “Are you okay?” He hoped his voice wasn't too panicked—he couldn't frag up the coding again, not here, not _now_. “Good boy,” he said quickly, rushing to reassure any distress before it dared to surface. “Good Rung!”

With no new tactile charge building, Whirl was _finally_ able to get the manual override on his spark chamber to stick. He pushed himself upright and inspected Rung's frame with his claws. If Rung's coding got mad about drinking before his Master, what would it do to Rung for overloading before his Master?

Without, Whirl mentally corrected. No fragging way was he letting the coding talk Rung into reciprocating.

Rung's optics flickered back online, and the giddy post-overload haze in his field was immediately drowned out with _guilt_ and _shame_ and _self-loathing_ and a thousand other emotions Whirl didn't want anywhere near his friend.

“Very good,” he praised. “Now it's my turn to eat.” For the first time, he was thankful the Senate had taken his face—it made it easier to project calm. “Lift up the cube, sweetspark.”

As he'd hoped, Rung latched onto the order like a life raft. His hand shook so hard it rattled as he lifted the half-full cube up to Whirl, still curled around his waist on the berth. If the cube had been full, it would have sloshed over the sides; Whirl congratulated himself on unexpected foresight and bent forward to drink.

“I'm so sorry,” Rung said, his voice hoarse and raw with static. “I didn't ask—” He broke off. “I didn't ask if you even _wanted—_ ”

Whirl almost laughed as he started siphoning fuel from the cube. Oh, wanting was _so_ not the problem. “Did you drink enough?” he asked, trying his best to project calm and ignore the frantic charge creeping under his plating. “What are your fuel levels at?”

“Eighty percent,” Rung said.

“I'm at ninety percent,” he said, rounding up a little. “You're a little guy. I guess you don't need much fuel.”

“Whirl—” For a beautiful second, he could hear the aggravated tone of the friend who snarked about mechs under his breath. “Master—” Well, it had been a nice moment.

“I can't tell you not to worry about me.” He'd learned that resulted in sparking optics and short-circuits. “But I'm great. I promise. That was great. You did great.”

Maybe he was laying it on a little thick, but what else could he do when Rung's still-exposed spark was twisting in agony?

“But—do you need—” Rung's voice cracked. “I'm so sorry.”

“The only thing I need is more fuel, and you're doing great there,” Whirl said. “And then you're gonna buff and polish me, right?”

“Yes, of course!” A brief flare of eagerness drove back the guilt and panic in his field. “But—nothing before then?”

“Uh, you're gonna have to finish fueling up,” Whirl thought about the implications there and rushed to add, “I want to try hand-feeding you next.”

***

Rung stared up at his Master in disbelief. He could _see_ charge glittering between Whirl's transformation seams. Enough charge that it probably stung—and the cut on his neck was still leaking energon.

He scanned his Master's frame as he drank, noting the claw-shaped dent against the spark casing and interface equipment housing. As if he'd resorted to physically forcing them shut.

“Master,” Rung said, barely aware the words were leaving his vocalizer, eyes focused on the dents, “the dents—”

“Oh, you'll have to pop those out when you buff me,” Whirl said quickly. He drained the cube in a sudden rush. “Aha! My turn. Here you go, sweetspark.”

Rung couldn't protest; he obediently parted his lips to drink the energon Whirl brought to his mouth. Whirl's frame ran hot and clearly wired with charge, but his claws indicated no impatience. He carefully tipped the cube so that Rung could swallow easily, his free arm wrapped around Rung's waist.

The coding expected to reciprocate, but—but he _was_ serving his Master, and he couldn't be _presumptuous_ —and—and Whirl was making no sign at all of asking.

He was clearly ramped up with charge. He wouldn't even have to say anything—he would just need to open his interface equipment housing, and Rung would take care of him.

And yet he _didn't_. Why?

Prevented from speaking by the cube against his lips and facing constant praise and petting and _reassurance_ , Rung was forced to do as his Master wanted and relax.

“Good boy,” Whirl said, lowering the empty cube. “How're you feeling? What're your energy levels at?”

“Ninety-eight percent,” Rung answered. “I—I feel wonderful, thank you.”

“Perfect.” Whirl's optic curved in an approving smile. “Now I want you to close that up and go get some waxing and buffing stuff from—wherever mechs get that kinda thing. Okay?”

“Close…?” Rung repeated—then realized with a start that his spark had remained exposed the entire time. He'd never closed those panels so quickly before in his life—he fairly slammed them shut.

He felt the embarrassed urge to apologize, but Whirl's tone hadn't had any implied rebuke, and the coding thought that leaving his spark on display for his Master was a very good thing indeed, just not fit for public errands, so he left the thought there.

“Good boy,” Whirl said, patting Rung's helm, still smiling with his optic. “I'll be right here resting,” he said. “Go ahead and get the detailing stuff.”

Rung nodded, and his coding sang at the chance to run a _proper_ errand—one that required multiple steps, multiple decisions, the trust of his Master—forgetting all about the charge lingering on his Master's frame.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whirl finds out important new information, Rung doesn't.

Whirl vented with relief once Rung left the room. He couldn't bring himself to the _fun_ kind of overload on his own, but he'd learned how to trip the medical override one after his hands had been taken. It was the work of a klik to flush the charge from his system in one painful burst.

There. At least he wouldn't keep distressing Rung when he got back—he'd be able to enjoy a nice buff and wax.

Ugh. Was he really going to enjoy making Rung do something? He felt sick.

The scary thing about the coding was that it would be _so easy_ to forget Rung literally had to obey or die. However much it rewarded him for obedience, the constant snapping nastiness it used to enforce it couldn't be worth it. He'd seen Rung's spark nearly gutter out five times in the span of the last two decaorns, and he'd rather offline himself than ever see it again.

He looked at the door, calculated how much time he had before Rung's return, and pulled up a commline to Chromedome. “Hey, buddy, any progress?” he said, trying and failing to keep his tone light.

When Chromedome vented hard instead of immediately replying, Whirl knew the answer.

“I would have to rewrite Rung entirely to remove the code,” Chromedome said after dragging Whirl through several kliks of apologizing and rationalizing and other scrap. It was the only point that mattered. “Extensive shadowplay. And I _can't_ do that. Is—is he doing okay?”

Whirl offlined his optic, resignation curling around his spark. “I'll have to talk to him about this,” he lied. “I'll get back to you, okay?”

He sank back against the berth and thought of the bright glow of Rung's spark. The awful sight of it twisting half out of existence.

Someone buzzed for admittance, and Whirl unlocked the door, pulling his field tight against his frame just in case. Sure enough, Rung walked in, a dazzling smile on his face that ignited Whirl's spark in his chest.

“Good boy,” Whirl said as soon as the door shut. He got to his pedes and swaggered to the center of his habsuite, full of false confidence. “I think the best way to polish me would be to do a once-over while I'm in my alt mode—” where it'd be easier to think and not give any of his usual tells, “—and then do detail work while I'm in root mode. Sound good?”

Of course it sounded good to Rung—anything his Master said _had_ to sound good. But Whirl transformed beside the spare berth to allow Rung easier access to hard-to-reach spots on his frame, and did his very best to project calm happiness, neither of which he actually felt.

Breems passed in silence as Rung wiped him down and popped his dents and patched the cut in his neck—well, the plating that would be his neck in root-mode. Then he started buffing,

“Ahh, frag, you're good with that thing.” Whirl said, forcibly relaxing into Rung's touch—at least he could enjoy the delight and pride in his friend's field. “Frag. I'm gonna go into recharge if we don't talk about something.”

Which was an exaggeration, but Rung teeked pleased and content, so he didn't fragging care.

“You are, of course, more than welcome to recharge,” Rung said.

“Will that mess with the coding?” Whirl asked, edging around to the subject he actually wanted to discuss. “Is it going to get angry at you?”

“No, it shouldn't,” Rung said. “If you say that it's a sign of a job well done, it should be pleased.”

“Definitely a job well done,” Whirl said. “If I pass out, though, you gotta go to bed without me, okay? I want you fully recharged for tomorrow.”

“Yes, Master.”

He had to ask before he lost his nerve. “Okay, coding, just let me be curious and ask Rung a few questions, okay? Rung, you gonna be okay if I ask some questions?”

“Yes, of course,” he answered, but it was automatic. “What do you need?”

“I just wanna understand the code better,” he said. “Like—like what can make it stop, that kind of thing.”

“Well, Chromedome's hard at work on a solution,” Rung said, “but, traditionally, only losing one's master will shut off the coding.”

“Like the Senate lost to Starscream?”

Rung made a discomfited face—the kind that meant the code was hurting him. “Yes.”

“Is that the only thing—other than the stuff Chromedome's working on—that would work?”

“Yes.” Rung's voice was soft and sad. “They were quite thorough.” He brightened. “But Chromedome is very skilled at his trade. I'm sure it will work out.”

Whirl felt something like peace ease into his spark. “Yeah,” he said. “I'm sure it will.”

***

It didn't take much to feign sleep in alt-mode; he waited until the pleased and exhausted Rung fell into recharge on the berth to transform back to root-mode and steal out into the hallway. He'd taken his time to plan, and he had years of playing at bravado to draw on and make sure nobody guessed anything was up.

“Yo, brainiac!” Whirl said, kicking open the door to Brainstorm's lab. “What've you got for me?”

“Haven't seen you in forever!” Brainstorm said. “I've broken the laws of physics half a dozen times in the last decaorn alone! And I've revolutionized three different fields, of course.”

“Ah, but what've you got that goes _boom_?” Whirl asked.

Brainstorm laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “You're going to _love_ this.”

Whirl did, in fact, love it. “And you say this thing will literally snuff out a spark? No fuss, no muss?”

“Mmhmm.” Brainstorm strutted a bit. “Percy calls it unethical, but sparks are volatile things! Snuff 'em wrong, and they'll take out half a spaceship.”

Exactly what Whirl _didn't_ want to happen. “And with this, the spark won't go boom?”

“That's right.”

“You've _got_ to let me have it.” Whirl put on his best pleading expression, hoping that Brainstorm wouldn't notice that his clasped claws had been blunted. “Please? Pleeeaaase? I can keep saying please until your shift is over, then follow you to Swerve's and hiss _pleeeaaase_ in your audial the whole time you're tryin' to get under Percy's plating, or you can give me the gun.”

“Take the damn gun.” Brainstorm waved him out the door. “It needs field-testing anyway.”

Whirl's optic curved into a grin. “Oh, I will _definitely_ take care of that,” he said, using the sing-song voice that unsettled other mechs, and he skittered out the door. Hopefully his rush would be taken as mischief and not—well, not what it actually was.

Stowing the gun in his subspace, Whirl started heading toward the storage room furthest from the medbay. About halfway down the hall, he remembered to whistle; when he whistled, everybody knew he was up to something, and they usually got the frag out of his way so he wouldn't turn the prank's focus on them instead.

As he went, he pulled out a datapad and began composing a note.

_Hey! So I'm trying to snuff out my spark here, since I'm way too awesome for this universe—_

He deleted it and began again, sobering a little. Might as well go down honest.

_Look, here's the deal. Rung's spark keeps trying to go out and his processor keeps glitching because the fragging Functionists were afts, and Chromedome can't fix it, and Ratchet can't fix it, but I can. You get that? I can fix this. Me, the walking weapon! Isn't that a laugh?_

It really was. He shook his head at the datapad. He'd planned to blow himself up along with the sweeps way back when; the postwar world didn't need a living weapon. But then he'd had some good fights with the crew of the Lost Light, and he'd come back from even the most implausible ones. He'd _really_ thought Cyclonus would knock him into that smelting pit.

 _But I_ can _, so I'm_ gonna _, okay? Kinda my motto. Here's my will: Brainstorm gets my weapons. Anything else goes to Rung, because he's had one Pit of a time since he imprinted on me, and it's kinda the least I can do._

He looked down at the note, evaluating it. Not bad, as last words went.

Oh, he'd forgotten one thing: _Whatever you do, DON'T RESUSCITATE ME._

***

Rung stared at the frame on the medbay berth, his spark pinching. He'd woken the moment the code snapped off—the moment the order to recharge had no longer held sway over him—and he'd _known_. He'd commed Ratchet immediately, and they'd managed to haul Whirl out of the debris and get him to the medbay. His spark had fully _gone out_ for several kliks—they'd managed to bring an ember back up to a flicker, but he remained unresponsive. The slight brainwave activity meant nothing.

The coding was completely unresponsive, too, and that had brought him to Whirl's side. Despite the weak signals on the monitor and the polished but not-wholly-grayed frame, the coding's silence convinced him that Whirl was gone.

He'd read the suicide note.

“The least you could have done was _live_.”

Whirl didn't—couldn't—respond.

Rung reached out to touch the blunted claws, grief pressing down on him. The coding did nothing to dull memory; he could clearly recall Whirl using those claws to knead away the aches from his flare. He could remember Whirl negotiating with the code, begging it to stop hurting his friend. He still felt Whirl's frame beneath his lips, crackling with charge, rending the metal of his own frame to keep himself from giving in when Rung couldn't _really_ say yes. He'd even redirected Rung so that the code wouldn't hurt him after he managed to overload himself pressed against Whirl's chassis.

He hadn't done a single thing to take advantage of the code. Not once. And the moment Chromedome had told him there was no hope of a cure, he'd taken the matter on personally.

No grandstanding. No big, brave speeches. Just a quiet offlining to save his friend from suffering.

He rubbed a gentle circle into the claw, and Whirl stirred.

“Figures the Pit would hurt like the Pit,” he grumbled. When he tried to laugh at his own joke, though, his intakes wheezed, and he onlined his optic.

Rung looked back at him as horror and grief and rage exploded outward in Whirl's field.

“Frag it—” Whirl's voice was _stricken_. “I left a fragging note!” He scrambled to rip out his life support cables and found himself bound to the berth. “A note!” He pitched his voice in a way that Ratchet would surely hear—a loud, angry shriek. “Whatever you do, don't resuscitate me! Is that so fragging hard to—” He stilled, looking at Rung's face. “Hey, hey, it's okay, I'm not mad at you—I'm mad at Ratchet, not you, so uh—the code, uh—” His voxcoder spat static. “You're good, okay? For the love of Primus, please tell me I'm not melting you again, I swear—I _swear—_ ”

Rung's vocalizer reset, but no words came out.

“I'm so sorry,” Whirl said. “I'm so, so sorry!”

“Sorry for nearly killing yourself?” Rung could barely speak.

“Well, for the _nearly_ part.” Whirl sobbed and stopped straining against the bonds. “How can one bot fail at dying _this many times_?” he demanded. “I just wanted you to be okay, and I fragged it up—I fragged everything up—Ratch should've let me rust in peace!”

“Whirl!” Rung pinched his claw hard enough to make him yelp. “You _died_!” He'd never felt so angry and hurt in his life. “How dare you?”

The yellow optic trained on his face conveyed nothing, but confusion rippled through Whirl's field. “You pinched me.”

“You _died_!”

“But you—the code's not hurting you?”

“The code died when you did!” Rung's optics sparked as cleaning fluid pooled behind his glasses; he had to remove them. “What were you _thinking_? I spent centuries surviving that coding—I would never have asked you to offline yourself for my own _comfort_!”

To Rung's shock, Whirl's optic curved into a grin, and relief poured through his field. “Primus, doc, it's you again. It's _you_.”

In a move so fast Rung didn't even think to react, Whirl rent his bonds into pieces and pulled Rung in for a hug.

Rung's remaining fury burned away at the touch of Whirl's sheer unadulterated _joy_.

“It's you,” Whirl sobbed. “You're okay. You're _okay_.”

Unsure how to react, Rung glanced sidelong at Ratchet, who was shaking his head at the snapped handcuffs. After a moment, Rung relaxed in Whirl's arms and patted his back. “That's right,” he said. “I'm fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus ends part two of Slavecoding!Rung. Stay tuned, there are several more parts to come!


End file.
